Development of Creative Commons licenses

[email AT greglondon.com]

Evan Prodromou said:
>>>>>> "RM" == Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com> writes:
>     RM> Being popular by writing weaker licenses
>     RM> would not be as great a success as educating
>     RM> people to use stronger licenses.

here's my education document:

http://www.greglondon.com/dtgd/pdf/draftingthegiftdomain.pdf

Its a total of 80 pages long, but it covers everything
from an introduction to copyright and patent law, to Open
Source licenses, to Open Content licenses, distinguishing
the difference between Copyleft/ShareAlike licenses,
PublicDomain type licenses, and licenses that are not
open/free at all.

one big problem, as I see it, is that the vocabulary
doesn't yet quite match up with the intent. "open" and
"free" and "public" are all trying to describe somethign
that is really best called a "gift". Hence the name of the
document is "Drafting the Gift Domain", which is like
Public Domain, but rather than having rights expire and
enter a Public Domain, authors GIFT their rights to a gift
domain so that people can use them immediately.

DtGD attempts to distinguish what a Gift Economy is in
reference to Writings (software, literature, music, etc)
as opposed to the Market Economy that we all know in the
form of "All Rights Reserved". From there, licenses such
as NoDerivatives, NonCommercial, EduOnly quickly show
themselves to NOT be in a Gift Economy, but rather to be
more closer to a Market Economy.

The intent was to create a document that would educate
someone who is interested in contributing a Writing to a
Gift Domain, but doesn't know anything about Copyright
law, licensing, or how long-term successful Gift
Economies, such as Linux, survive alongside a Market
Competitor such as Microsoft Windows. (Pssst, the secret
is Copyleft. and is explained in the document)

The contributer would then be left with enough knowledge
to know how to license their work as a gift and that their
contribution can survive in and alongside a Market
Economy. Or if they are looking for a marketing license,
they will understand how NoDerivatives would support them.

The document itself is licensed GNU-FDL. And I welcome any
comments to improve it. please send comments off-list.

> But realistically I don't think that Free-as-in-Freedom
> Culture is a goal of Creative Commons. Which is fine:
> CC does great work.

It's not their goal. However, their mission statement and
"about" page actually make matters worse in some respects
because they throw "Gift" style vocabulary (open, free,
public) in the mixer with 'market' vocabulary, without
really distinguishing the two.

People read that and then leave thinking that NoDerivs is
a "Free" license.

Drafting the Gift Domain was intended for any Author who
wished to contribute their Writing to a Gift Economy, be
it music, or software, or literature, or whatever.

I'm looking for feedback on the document from people "in
the know" about open content. Any comments welcome. Please
send them to me off-list.

Greg